What’s the show? That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime, Episode 7.
So how’s this episode? It’s very good. It hits all the right emotional beats, it’s exciting and surprisingly tense given that our protagonist is an unkillable super slime. But this show is acutely aware of this fact–and so puts the people ~around~ Rimuru in varying degrees of peril instead in order to elicit that much needed tension. Though it’s not perfect–and I’ll get back to that in a minute.
So what happens then? Well we get a better look into Shizu’s backstory with her childhood upon first being summoned to this fantasy world. Basically the flame demon god Ifrit–which inhabits her kind of overrides all her sense of reason when it “comes out” and she’s ended up frying a lot of friends in the process–something that understandably haunts her. She tries to hold it in but after years (decades even) of trying to contain that side of her, Ifrit fully awakens and begins causing problems, burning the newly built Goblin town to the ground.
What do they do to stop her/it? For one thing I’m glad the three adventurers she was travelling with don’t just turn the other way and run–even though that’d be the smart thing to do, they know they’re outclassed but they’re going to fight all the same! They’re also aware that Shizu hasn’t suddenly turned traitor on them and that this is a separate (albeit one who was using Shizu as a vessel) entity and she’s not to blame for what’s happening. Predictably though, they’re defeated and carried off the battlefield by a direwolf, leaving Rimuru to battle the fire demon whose mere presence is so intensely hot that the ground below him turns to lava.
Okay then, so what does Rimuru do to stop Ifrit? I’m not sure why Rimuru acted as “dumb” as he did in this episode, first he tries some of his most basic attacks against the demon–which fail. Then he actually worries he’s about to die when engulfed in one of the demon’s fire attacks. And they don’t even rationalise it in that he’s worried what’s happened to Shizu and that’s why he’s not thinking straight, he just has a massive series of dumb moments before realising he can use his “Predator” ability to straight up absorb and contain Ifrit like he did with Veldora the tempest dragon. I mean at least he realises how stupid he was and even Sage (the all knowing voice in his head) makes a snarky sound too–so at the least the show is aware of his shortcomings in this moment.
Right. Anything else you wanted to add? So the episode ends with Shizu lying on the ground and we’re left wondering if she lived or died. I mean I hope she’s okay, because I really like her character but who can say for sure? Regardless this was another very high quality episode and it’ll be interesting to see where they go from here!
Previous The Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime Reviews:
Slife After Death – Episode 1 Review
Slime Is On Their Side – Episode 2 Review
A Name Brings Great Chance – Episode 3 Review
Elf-Care – Episode 4 Review
The King’s Justice – Episode 5 Review
Building Connections – Episode 6 Review
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Anime QandA 
This was perhaps my favourite episode so far and probably the one that has finally gotten me a little bit emotionally invested in this series. It kind of feels like things finally clicked and I quite enjoyed it even if Rimuru was being somewhat dense throughout the fight sequence before he ended it pretty much in one shot (amazing what he can do when he actually just does it).
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Glad you’re finally enjoying the series! Hopefully it keeps building and building!
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I hope so too. It has been a slow build so far, but I kind of feel like there’s finally enough there to start getting into it.
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I’m kind of going the other way. The ridiculously OP main character is pushing me away from the series, and I still don’t feel like it’s got any sort of handle on storytelling. Like why did Ifrit show up at that time? I couldn’t see anything that happened except “Hey, it’s been a while since we had a fight so that Rimuru could show off how overpowered he is, so let’s do this now.” And like you say, they make him act like an idiot for 5 minutes to drag out the fight.
It’s true a show like this can still be enjoyable (even to me), but I find it disappointing that it’s just so blandly conceived, especially just a season after we had a show that was so good narratively in “How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord”. I don’t find “I Win” buttons particularly interesting or compelling, especially when they’re not really used well in a story.
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